Peace Be to Youbased on John 20:19-31by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Huling Hummel

One of the
things that surprised me when I moved to a small town in upstate New York, was
how many people I’ve met who don’t lock their doors. It is not at all unusual
for someone to say to me, “Well, Pastor if we’re not home when you get
there, just go on in and sit down. There’s some cold pop in the frig. So help
yourself. And please help yourself to the cookies on the kitchen counter, too.”

I remember
going over to a church member’s house not so long ago. She told me that she
may or may not be home, but that the door would be open. I had something that I
didn’t want to leave outside in the rain and so I tried the door and sure enough
it was unlocked. Not only did I walk in the back door, but her “watchdog”
nearly licked me to death. Even thinking about that unlocked door gives me the
willies. Imagine, I just walked into that house.

I’m just not
used to unlocked doors. It’s probably because I’m from NJ: the “locked door
state”. When I lived there, we had not one, not two, but three locks on most of
the doors to our house. There was the regular lock that was part of the
doorknob. But we also installed a dead bolt in case someone jimmied the first
lock. And we also installed a chain, so you could open the door a little, but
still be safe. But that wasn’t all. We also had a peep hole too, so that we
wouldn’t have to unlock the door to see who was there. But there’s more! We
also installed one of those motion lights that come on if anyone approaches the
door. We decided, if we were going to be robbed that we weren’t going to make
it easy for the intruder! We’d make them work for it..

To this day,
I have a nightly door locking ritual. I usually check the doors more than
once, because I can’t remember if I locked them or not. You know how that is.
You’re lying in bed thinking, “Did I or didn’t I?” And finally you just get up
to check to see if the door is locked, because you cant fall asleep worrying
about it. Now some people might think I’m paranoid- who knows, maybe I am.
But not without cause. I’ve been robbed. So thank goodness for locks. Yes,
locked doors give us a great sense of security.

The reading that we’ve just heard from
John’s gospel, the lectionary reading for the day is about locked doors and
locked hearts. It’s about doubt and it’s about faith. Let’s spend
some time together discovering what the text has to say to us about living our
lives in doubt and in faithfulness.... Subscribers:Click here for